A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) eBook

“Whose great verse blares
unintermittent on
Like your own trumpeter at Marathon,—­”
(vol. i. p. 169.)

He recalls his readers to the “business”
of the poem:

“the
fate of such
As find
our common nature—­overmuch
Despised
because restricted and unfit
To bear
the burthen they impose on it—­
Cling when
they would discard it; craving strength
To leap
from the allotted world, at length
They do
leap,—­flounder on without a term,
Each a god’s
germ, doomed to remain a germ
In unexpanded
infancy, unless....” (pp. 170, 171.)

admits that the story sounds dull; but suggests the
possibility of its containing an agreeable surprise.
An amusing anecdote to this effect concludes the chapter.[19]

BOOK THE FOURTH.

We are now introduced to Taurello Salinguerra:
a fine soldier-like figure; the type of elastic strength
in both body and mind. We are told that he possesses
the courage of the fighter, the astuteness of the
politician, the knowledge and graces of the man of
leisure. He has shown himself capable of controlling
an Emperor, and of giving precedence to a woman.
He is young at sixty, while the son who is half his
age, is “lean, outworn and really old.”
And the crowning difference between him and Sordello
is this: that while Sordello only draws out other
men as a means of displaying himself, he only displays
himself sufficiently to draw out other men. “His
choicest instruments” have “surmised him
shallow.”

He is in his palace at Ferrara, musing over the past—­that
past which held the turning-point of his career; which
began the feud between himself and the now Guelph
princes, and which naturally merged him in the Ghibelline
cause. He remembers how the fathers of the present
Este and San Bonifacio combined to cheat him out of
the Modenese heiress who was to be his bride—­how
he retired to Sicily, to return with a wife of the
Emperor’s own house—­how his enemies
surprised him at Vicenza. He sees his old comrade
Eccelino, so passive now, so brave and vigorous then.
He sees the town as they fire it together: the
rush for the gates: the slashing, the hewing,
the blood hissing and frying on the iron gloves.
His spirit leaps in the returning frenzy of that struggle
and flight. It sinks again as he thinks of Elcorte—­Adelaide’s
escape—­her rescued child; his own doom
in the wife and child who were not rescued.

“And now! he has effaced himself in the interests
of the Romano house. Its life has grafted itself
on his own; and to what end? The Emperor is coming.
His badge and seal, already in Salinguerra’s
hands, bestow the title of Imperial Prefect on whosoever
assumes the headship of the Ghibellines in the north
of Italy; and Eccelino, its proper chief, recoils;
withdraws even his name from the cause. Who shall
wear the badge? None so fitly as himself, who
holds San Bonifacio captive—­who has dislocated
if not yet broken the Guelph right arm. Yet, is
it worth his while? Shall he fret his remaining
years? Shall he rob his old comrade’s son?”
He laughs the idea to scorn....